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Suspected Bomb Discovered at New York Home of George Soros

Philanthropist and political activist George Soros is a familiar target of far-right conspiracy theorists and mainstream Republicans. (Central European University / Flickr)

A suspected bomb on Monday was found in the mailbox at the New York home of George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist who has also become the boogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists and mainstream Republicans, leading police to detonate the suspicious package in a nearby forested area.

While Soros was reportedly not home at the time, local police stated: “An employee of the residence opened the package, revealing what appeared to be an explosive device. The employee placed the package in a wooded area and called the Bedford police.”

According to the New York Times, “police said they had turned the case over to the F.B.I., which did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a tweet late Monday night, the bureau’s New York office said it was conducting an investigation ‘at and around a residence in Bedford’ and that there was no threat to public safety.”

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the Democratic congressional candidate from New York, indicated the incident is what society can expect when the entire right-wing echo chamber spews nonsense about Soros while also continuing—as Trump did last week by applauding the body-slamming of a journalist—to promote violence against others as legitimate political expression:

When the right increasingly mischaracterizes nonviolent civil disobedience as “violence,” they provoke actual, targeted attempts to harm others.

As Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer points out, the incident at Soros’ home occurred as “GOP campaign ads are portraying Soros as a super-villain and Rep. Matt Gaetz [R-Fla.] accused Soros without any evidence of being behind the Honduras caravan, which right-wing Twitter has dubbed the #SorosCaravan.”

In a recent piece, Sommer detailed why the right’s obsession with Soros, who is Jewish, reeks of anti-Semitism and is just the most recent historical expression of a very familiar pattern. In response to Monday’s discovery of a device outside his home, independent journalist Eoin Higgins declared: